Taesung has a good idea. I'd ask for an actual picture of the piece before buying rather than the box art. On in some cases pictures pulled off a forum and used to represent the counterfeit. I'd also add the caveat that if its not the same when you receive it, the deal is off. This way everything is up front, no one feels mislead and there are no surprises and you have some sort of documentation if the refund is challenged.
My advice? Avoid e-bay all together. e-bay is no different than a pawn shop that fences stolen goods. While I'm sure there are plenty of legitimate deals, there are an equal number of bad ones. And e-bay tries to play a plausible deniability game when it comes to counterfeit items. So in the words of Uncle Joe...."no man, no problem". Don't buy off e-bay, don't get taken. The low price axiom of being too good to be true is a good one, but I have gotten better than e-bay deals at shows from estate collections, bundling groups of figures and offering cash, checking all the vendors in the vendor room at shows. There are all kinds of deals to be had if you take the time to look for them, there are stores looking to unload surplus or slow moving items and in some cases, guys just looking to unload some of the grey army and need the cash more than the figures. In some cases the figures have been cleaned up, started, or may not even be in the original packaging but they are the real deal and are being sold for pennies on the dollar. I also don't mind paying full price to dealers that come to shows (I get to save on the shipping, have the immediate gratification of having it in my hands and can open packaging to peruse contents and check quality), they have to make a living too and its good to see them prosper. As for mail order, the two I'd highly recommend are Colorado Miniatures and Red Lancers. Gotten good service from both and they are reliable and honest. If you want a deal at a show, bring cash. (Cash is the magic medium) It limits your spending to realistic levels and makes you look at what your buying and choose carefully. You save on the interest of the credit card, the merchant saves on the processing fee and added bs fees (like those spending points you get, the merchant pays for via some cards) he gets cash that is much easier and better for him (
) and because of that most vendors I've run into will "deal".
I'm aware there are plenty of hard working and legitimate small business trying to use e-bay as means of marketing and income, but frankly, the preponderance of internet companies, the ease of setting up domains and the increasing use of social media sites like Facebook as guerilla style free web sites for selling goods, there is no need for me to hit e-bay.
